Fingerprint required for library card

Michael Hampton

13 years ago

If you live in the nice little Chicago suburb of Naperville, Illinois, and want a library card, soon you’ll have to give up your fingerprint.

According to a Chicago Tribune article published last Friday, the city of Naperville is installing a fingerprint scanning system to control access to its computers. Unless your fingerprint matches the one on your library card, you won’t be able to use the so-called “public” computers in Naperville’s so-called “public” libraries.

The stored numeric data cannot be used to reconstruct a fingerprint, West said, nor can it be cross-referenced with other fingerprint databases such as those kept by the FBI or the Illinois State Police.